By winning their eighth successive Twenty20 international, England created another small slice of history in what has already been a ground-breaking tour.

In the five years since the form was introduced, no team has ever achieved such an extended run of success, and after the match their captain Paul Collingwood predicted that it would be a difficult mark to beat.

“It means a lot,” said Collingwood. “It’s a world record. We always say we want to create history and in this form of the game eight wins is something very special. It only takes that one performance to take it away from you, and we nearly had it taken away from us tonight by Shane Watson. But we managed to scramble through. It’s a good effort, that. I can’t see too many teams coming close to that in the future.”

Collingwood admitted that he had never seen England’s match-winner Chris Woakes bat in a match situation before.

The fateful decision to promote Woakes up the order was taken on the advice of Andy Flower, the England coach, and caused a few raised eyebrows in the England dressing-room.

“Andy said he was a serious batter,” Collingwood explained. “Swanny was a little disappointed he was ahead of him, but when Woakes hit that six off Shaun Tait, Swanny just doffed his cap to Andy and understood why the decision had been made. He’s a true all-rounder.

“You never know what you’re getting with new players, but I thought he responded really well and put in a great performance. Not too many people had heard of Chris Woakes before today, but he’s a good lad, and he looks as though he enjoys himself out in the middle, and enjoys the pressure. It was excellent to have a youngster come into the side and see us through, though I don’t think we should have been leaving it up to him to be honest.”

Players from both teams took turns yesterday to walk around the boundary with a bucket collecting donations towards the Queensland disaster fund, and almost A$25,000 was raised during the match.

Collingwood added that the England players had all clubbed together to make their own contribution to the charity, after watching the frightening footage of the flash floods on the local news channels.

telegraph.co.uk

It was the first 20/20 game I have watched, and probably the most exciting cricket game (never thought I'd use that phrase in a real sentence!) I have ever seen.

Yes, this form of cricket can be very exciting. I doubt it would have suited the likes of Geoff Boycott or Chris Tavare in their day. lol

Shane Watson blasts the England bowlers away making 161 with the Aussies winning the first ODI at the G

Quote:SIX! Australia win! Watson finishes it in style with a six over long on off the first ball of the final over! Watson finishes with 161 not out off 150 balls as Australia win by six wickets with five balls remaining!